Getting to Yes

Joseph was six-feet perhaps, not an inch shorter than me, yet as the broad-faced, dark chocolate-skinned man lumbered slowly toward me with a slumped gait that made him seem at least three inches shorter. At the same time, I could feel and see that each step he took reeked with pain. Some

days, I still do the same dance, and six months before my ability to sit, reach, stretch, or even take a step was just as bound.

People who do not have chronic arthritis or join and muscle pain might not be able to imagine how much the constant stabbing or wrenching cramps transform the body, mind and spirit. Most well-meaning, yet uninitiated people will say something like,"You can get over it," which is meant to be an encouragement. Worse, are those who offer,  "Think positive thoughts," or "I read an article that said you can use natural foods to stop those pains."

The real truth that Joseph and I know is that once pain moves into your life it pervades your space as much as a wife. The hurt and accompanied depression can become constant companions. You an feel the presence in your sleep. They make you aware of their deep intrusions on your life every time you move. When you try to get out of bed in the morning, like a hungry lover, pain tries to pull you back.

Pain demands your surrender. That is why those who live with chronic pain conditions learn to fight. That is also why they need support to succeed. Boldly said, no one knows the pain and depression unless they have been there.

I previously wrote about the cycle of pain that makes you want to quit life. Like the call of a siren, with every step, reach, sit, and stretch, pain slaps or stabs at you until you recline. You notice it hurst less when you lie perfectly still, although the body wracks even then. Finally, pain convinces you that you cannot get up. You cannot fight. In the recesses of your mind, uninvited voices whisper, "give up."

So, as Joseph sat near me at a table in Health Food City, where Dr. Lin has her office, we talked about pain and movement. Truth be told, to my embarrassment, I talked about 70 percent more than he. Joseph kind of looked at me and listened to my words, as any smart person might when
introduced to a stranger. I could see in his eyes, he was not certain what to make of the situation. C'mon, you go to the doctor and she introduces you to another patient, who claims to be going through the same kinds of pains and circumstances.

He listened and his manner warmed as I rapidly cycled through memories of my long walk with pain. Somewhere in what I said about the responses of immobility and depression, we seemed to begin to bond. I read doubt in his eyes, but he hoped for release, as I did months ago.

I hoped that he might become a personal support on my journey to physical, mental and spiritual harmony and balance. Someone to chat with, exchange stories, celebrate victories, and listen. I planned to do the same for him.

As his ride pulled up, I handed Joseph my card. He took the small cardboard rectangle, and promised to email me his contact information. He did. Yes. For both of us, that is where another story begins.

Exercise Is Medicine

I walked twice the usual distance this morning. As I strolled the empty predawn streets, I found new energy to propel me past the pains and doubts that constantly push me to quit this effort. I marveled at the new spirit, then realized its root is in an old mantra, "Exercise is medicine."

A nutritionist told me those words in 2006, when diabetes joined rheumatoid arthritis as my affliction. Movement is key, she used to say.  Exercise fights sugar, stiff joints, poor blood flow, and the butt spread from sitting.

At points, the daily walk becomes an act of meditation. "Exercise is medicine," and other little things I say to myself help fight the sharp stabs and aches in my legs, knees, hips and back. Those hurts gang up on me and feed the urge to quit. The pain spurs the negative thoughts and the despair - which hits more often than you can imagine - that hangs you between the desire to live and die. That tedious imbalance and dissonance opens my impatient, doubt-filled consciousness to embrace defeat and stasis like a couple of long-lost relatives.

My experience is clear, but not isolated. A recently published study in a Sports Science journal cites the ties between self-talk and endurance. Thoughts can snatch victory from defeat.

It is a twisted cycle. The less I move, the less I feel pain. The less I move the more the physical, mental and spiritual sickness grows. The more the malady swallows my body, mind and spirit the greater I hurt until the decline hits my soul and chokes the existence out of my life.

I might never enjoy exercise, but what I tell myself about it is key. The steady steps, especially in the predawn silence, help me to build stamina, clear my mind, process ideas, and douse the cares of daily existence. The words in my head pump up this journey toward physical, mental and spiritual balance and harmony like fertilizer does plants. They can convince me that I will bloom.

The Good, the Bad and the Better

As most periods in life, this week brought challenges that might have melted into frustration, except for my capacity to accept that "some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you." I would like to say that I developed the ability to accept ups and downs with a certain level of peace because I am so great. The truth is, the realization came into my mindset a few years back when I grew to accept that God, not I, bears responsibility for the universe. That was the first step along a path to spiritual balance and harmony. I have freewill, as do all humans. The difference is that I accept that sometimes you can do everything in your power, and there are so many circumstances that remain to be overcome. This week I found that my control did little to reign in poor diet habits and the weather, yet I am encouraged by good.

The soups pull me in, and the pounds drop off.

On Friday, Sept. 19, I fidgeted my six-foot, one frame into the higi machine at the local market. Check out the link above, if you did not read what I previously  wrote about the device. Anyway, I thought I might have to shoehorn my body into the metal health mobile, yet noticed a little more ease in the fit. Never one to get too excited, I input my data and requested to be weighed. The digital device said that I lost ten pounds since Monday, Sept. 8, from 364 to 354. The complex set of calculations that yield what is called my Body Mass Index say I am now only 46.6 percent fat compared with the previous 47.9 percent total. My blood pressure was an enviable 118 over 79. Woohoo! I even moved to the right edge of an acceptable heart rate at 100.

Intrusions on my schedule and other interruptions made me wonder whether I might be able to keep to better nutrition patterns. At a few points during the past week, my 1500-calorie per day diet goal went way crazy. I suppose that happens, but I worried that I might lose positive momentum. The two days of heavy rain, which provided ample excuse to suspend my usual walk, gave me pause, too. I try to clock at least three miles worth of steps during an average day. I only logged 0.7 miles (1164 steps) on Friday, and an embarrassingly few 0.2  miles (388 steps), the next day.

This morning. I continue to have energy for this journey, a positive mental attitude, a willingness to ask for God's help, and a new week begins. The sun rose and I can't wait to walk to the nearby park. Like I said in a previous post, the distance probably means little to those of you who are runners, or even have good legs. I am poised to keep a rein on the calories this week. I have found solace in two restaurants that provide the best Lemon Grass and Egg Drop Wonton soups in the area. Also, I will make a few extra visits to higi. That's better.

The Gift of Being Patient

Today was one of those days that gets in the way of itself. I did not have time for a morning walk. I hoped to do it in the afternoon, but those chances were shredded by the demands of others' schedules. patience. Today was a good time to exercise that gift.

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Years ago, as I entered a path toward more mental and spiritual harmony and balance, I read, "One moment of patience can save a life. A moment of impatience can destroy one."  I try to fight against the forces that spoiled my healthy routine, yet I lose.  Somewhere in the back of my thoughts a serene voice softly whispers, "patience." The word comes from Latin, and means to suffer or endure. The French writer Alexandre Dumas went so far as to say, "All human wisdom is summed up in two words, wait and hope." For me, that is a spiritual exercise.

I never had much patience in my youth, because I was a stickler for order. A day like the one I experienced today - where most activities roll outside my control - would have sent me into a tail spin. But the gift to tamp one's enthusiasm, or angst, is vital.

The results that I have experienced thus far on this journey to physical, mental and spiritual harmony and balance sometime make me anxious. I want to see the promised changes occur as quickly as possible, and sometimes forget my path is a road, not a highway. My new life habits will stick at times, and at times get broken. When I endure the breaks and come back, the strength of patience is clear. I have learned to wait as I hope.

From here on

The first step on a journey is usually in front of you, but that seemingly simple feat only works well when you know where you are going. I don't. Just as the canary stares pensively at the chessboard, I spent the past week or so on what to say, and learned that only the truth will suffice.

I am fat. That is more than just something to say. According to calculations by a higi machine, a digital fitness device at the place where I go to check my weight, I am nearly 49 percent body fat. To fitness experts that means I am morbidly obese, which a 2007 Rand study marked as  three times the growth rate of other kinds of U.S. weight issues. Obesity might be medically bad, but it is not the reason I am making this journey.

I am not on a program to lose weight. Dropping pounds is about as useful as putting a fresh coat of paint on a termite-ridden house. The things that fester beneath the surface will still bring down the structure. My goal is to paint what can stand, rip out what is rotten and replace the parts that are outdated. The journey is about the struggle to be a new person, not a fixed-up version of the old.

Even as I wrote those words, now I have the concept. I know what to tell you from here on - about going to someplace in my heart, mind, body, and soul that I have never seen.

Welcome aboard.

A Little Catch Up

Dr. Lin always managed a smile. I marveled at her ability to do that, because when we met, I was probably as sour as she was pleasant. How we came to the point in our relationship that birthed this blog is a longer story than your patience, or my interest will allow me to chronicle at this point. You are promised a journey toward better physical, mental and spiritual harmony and balance. To talk about where we've been will only delay the story. That is why I decided to add a little catch up to alter the flavor and pace of the events.

You might have an interest from the day I first stopped in Health Food City and where I have come. I would, yet please forgive the leap.

The more Dr. Lin worked on my body, the greater change I noticed in my mind. As the pain in the legs began to subside, my thoughts cleared. I became more calm and felt more assured. That was the first real hint of the connections between body, mind and spirit. Those are the connections I will explore in this blog.

Most of the time, I will write about a weight loss program I started about a month ago to up the progress toward the goal. I will talk about the physical, mental and spiritual challenges connected with the effort. This is the beginning. From there, comes what I hope you find to be a interesting tale.

A Sign in the Window

I recently read a blistering condemnation from a writer who claimed, or joked,  that he travelled to several cities and towns, large and small across the nation. In every place, he intently went to check out streets named for the late Human Rights leader and American icon, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and all he found on those thoroughfares was run-down buildings and houses, trash, graffiti, urban blight, poverty, traffic congestion and general social and economic depression. His observation might have been in jest, but it is not funny...or universally true.

I drove along Orlando, Florida's Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (aka Route 50 or Colonial Drive) a couple days a week on and off for more than a year with that writer's

comments on my mind. I had long discounted the accuracy of his survey, even though I

had to admit there is some evidence throughout the country for support. I noticed the section of the road named after King was in a part of the city that flourished in commerce and different kinds of people. Every time I drove through the section some people call Little Vietnam, I noticed the words "Dr. Grace Lin," on a sign in the window. 

I must have driven past that sign for six months. In the U.S. we learn to ignore signs, mostly because there are so many that scream all sorts of pretensions. This one spoke of an acupuncturist who was also a doctor. I won't pretend that my knowledge of the health field is deep, and I already have a platoon of Western MDs, yet I wondered if Dr. Grace Lin might be a genuine practitioner of Eastern medicine, a healer.  One day, I finally gathered the courage and time to stop by the small Health Food City storefront. The lady behind the counter, who I now know as Alice, puttered with herbal mixes as she listened to my inquiry. 

I stumbled through the explanation of how I once lived in China, and went to a traditional doctor, and wanted to find a healer who had a knowledge of the traditional arts. 

"Does Dr. Lin know anything about traditional medicine, I asked.

Annie looked up over the slender, square black rims of her glasses with a look like she was face to face with a crazy person. After all, I walk into a place that lists the word "doctor," I can see shelves and cabinets labled in Chinese, Vietnamese and English with a vast array of natural medicinals. 

 "Man, you tell me whether you think you are in the right place," her glare said. "I don't know what to tell you, or what you really want." 

She looked up over her glasses and said the doctor was away for two weeks.

"I'll come back," I said.

"Sure," said Annie without a glance. "You come back when doctor is here."

I walked out with a firm resolution to return. I was at the bottom of a deep, deep well filled with pain, depression and despair. I had spent the past year or so, awash in the mess. I did not know if anything or anyone could improve my situation, but that is what you do when there is nothing left to lose - something. I decided to do some thing the minute I parked, walked into the shop to inquire about the doctor.

I was bothered by the fact that she was not immediately available. I even thought to take the absence as a sign that God wanted me to give up, remain steeped in a morass of pity and subliminal rage. I confess, there was a certain comfort in that miserable space, yet I have always been a person who seeks out more. I knew if I did not return I might never find out whether my useful life was really finished, or could there be more. 

I left Health Food City with a silent vow in my mind to meet the doctor. I did, but not for months.